Last night, Nanjing Pearl Spring Chess Tournament successfully concluded in Pukou. 6 top players competed with each other in 11 days and finally, Bulgarian player Topalov who ranked first in the world got the crystal trophy – “flying horse” and won the champion prize of 80,000 euros. The reporter has heard an even more inspiring piece of news – in view of the successful tournament this time, the Grand Slam Chess Association will hold discussion on admitting Nanjing to membership in Holland, next January. Female games will be added to the 2 session of the tournament.
Pukou, Nanjing Drawing International Attention
As a year-end wrap-up chess event, this tournament has drawn the attention of global chess fans by its top players and high level. It even shadows FIDE Grand Prix Tournament in Elista, Russia.
The reporter browsed the famous chess website chessbase.com and found many reports about this tournament, with accompanying pictures and chess manuals. Tian Hongwei, Deputy Director General of Foreign Affairs Department, Chinese Chess Association, Chess & Cards Administration Center, General Administration of Sport of China, told the reporter that she had received telephone calls and mails from many chess players since the tournament kicked off. They all showed their interests in participating the tournament next year. "This tournament was a hit. Even the British Chess King Adams also told me in privacy that he read a lot reports about the tournament, which was so fantastic. He regretted not having come to participate."
From the point of view of Ye Jiangchuan, Head Coach of Chinese Chess Team, Nanjing's tournament can be described as super tournament. "Such an event does good to the popularization of chess in China and is beneficial to the development of Nanjing, as well", Ye said, "It parallels the level of 4 traditional world super tournaments and drew the attention of more than 70 media home and abroad. In the past, such kind of grand occasion only happened at the time when Xie Jun played at the World Chess Championship. We can say that Nanjing's tournament brings the development of chess in China to another high tide."
A senior chess reporter of the world famous chess magazine New in Chess (a must-read magazine for grandmasters) spoke highly of the preparation and organization of this tournament when receiving our interview. "This tournament is of high professional level. Details have been considered well and the organization is orderly. Players, guests and journalists all have been taken good care of. And players can focus on games wholeheartedly."
According to incomplete statistics, there are 2050 related reports as of yesterday afternoon; 39 professional websites home and abroad have made links and serial reports about the event. There are 84,2000 pages of key word search results on Baidu and 22,8000 pages on Google. What delighted Chen Chunqing (responsible person of the tournament website) most is that this tournament realized automatic network live broadcast to the world, which is the first time in China and the official website received totally 62,005 times of visit. Daily visit is as high as 11,000 times. 90% of the visitors are out of China, mostly from Germany, USA, France and Bulgaria. The Netherlandish reporter especially praised the official website. "Chess is different from other sports. Many chess fans prefer to watch games at home via network." All those statistics have proved the great influence of this tournament and make Pukou and Nanjing the focus of the world in the end of 2008 at one stroke！
Joining the Grand Slam; Building Branded Program
The reporter learnt from the organizing committee that this tournament has already become a FIDE rating tournament and the biggest chess tournament in Asia. It will be held in Pukou for five years consecutively. Now, Chess & Cards Administration Center, General Administration of Sport of China has decided to take this tournament as a key branded chess program in the coming years. And it is even more exciting that the tournament is likely to be admitted to the Grand Slam Chess Association.
Similar to Tennis Grand Slam, Grand Slam Chess Tournaments are top-level in the world. Based on the plan of Grand Slam Chess Association, the Grand Slam tournaments consist of several sub-venue tournaments and one final every year. Consigned by the Grand Slam Chess Association, Director Silvio Danailov had conducted comprehensive assessments to Nanjing's tournament. He thought its prize, rank, reception and operation equaled the qualifications of super international tournaments and he reported his findings to the association. Dong Wei, Secretary-general of the organizing committee, standing member of the CPC Pukou District Committee and Director of Publicity Department, Pukou District, disclosed that the organizing committee had already submitted an application to the Grand Slam Association and the voting of admittance would be held on January 18th next year in Holland.
Dong Wei introduced that Nanjing's tournament will be merged into international super tournaments and be registered in the name of "Nanjing Pearl Spring". "Now, there are 4 categories of grand slam tournaments in the world: Tennis, F1, Golf and Chess. Currently, Grand Slam Chess has four members: Corus Chess Tournament, Linares Chess Tournament, M-Tel Masters Sofia and Final Chess Master Bilbao. If we can successfully join the association, we'll be the fifth member, which will bring infinite positive effect to Nanjing's future development."
When meeting FIDE officials, Zhu Shanlu, Secretary of the CPC Nanjing Committee pointed out that Nanjing would make use of holding the tournament to let more students, citizen know about chess and take a fancy to chess, thus building Nanjing into a seedbed for chess grandmasters and facilitating Nanjing's internationalization. At the closing ceremony yesterday, Jiangpu Experimental Primary School, Nanjing Foreign Language School and Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology received a plaque of "Chess-featured School" respectively from the Chinese Chess Association. It indicates that Nanjing attaches great importance to popularizing this sport while striving to operate high-end tournament.
Three Platforms Boosting Nanjing
At the closing news release conference on yesterday evening, Dong Wei, Secretary-general of the organizing committee told the media that they planned to operate next year's tournament together with the Pearl Spring Tourism Festival from May to the year-end. He said, "Our concept is to build the tournament into a high-end branded event and involve the tourism festival to enhance the popularity of chess."
Chess means not only a game of wisdom but also cultural exchange. Establishing a platform for the communication between the east and the west is one of the three platforms we aim to build. We'll establish a platform of high-end sports; another platform for Nanjing showing itself; and a third platform of cultural communication between the east and the west. "Based on the 3 platforms, we'll show Nanjing to the world, export Chinese culture to the world and enhance the spiritual qualities of people in Nanjing." When talking about the achievements of this tournament, Dong Wei told the reporter, "The first platform is established through hold this tournament. The 2nd one is also in process. The 3rd platform is particularly crucial, which means we need to meditate, dig into our cultural resources and regain cultural spirits. In this way, we can drive Nanjing's internationalization."
"In the game of Chinese Chess, the king can only move around in the nine squares. Bishops cannot move across the boundary river. But Chess has no limitation of boundary river and the king can move freely on the whole chessboard. We are now faced with internationalized competition, so we are in urgent need of macro insight and global vision to improve people's livelihood and boost social economic development", Dong Wei also made the above statement when receiving the interview.
When we invited that senior chess journalist from Holland to "find fault" with our tournament, he answered, "Don't take yourself as inexperienced. On the contrary, I think you can view chess in a fresh way without the conventional restrictions. I think the venue decorated by cloud-pattern brocade and Chinese tunic suits are very unique. I'm fulfilled with expectation for the next year."
His expectation is also the heartfelt wishes of people of Nanjing, especially the people of Pukou.
Source: Yangtze Evening Post
